why is this "abysmally" bad topology?
Your problem is that even though you used all quads, they do not flow with the muscles underneath and they do nothing to describe the form other than define a surface. You need to watch some of the tutorials on retopology and you will see how they create loops around the eyes, mouth etc. and join them to create a mesh that is easy to animate with rigging, as well as low poly enough to properly uv unwrap and texture. High resolution sculpts can be used to derive the form and the lower poly mesh is what you animate and bake the details to.

Sorry you got such non constructive criticism, but that seems to be the norm on the internet. I would suggest taking a look over at some tutorials on CGCookie.